Product Manager Reflections

A product manager is a strange profession that exists in Silicon Valley. You are the mini CEO. But not really. You can do everything, but you haven't achieved mastery in anything. You have all the power, and no power. You have all the responsibility, and no responsibility. All these statements are true, and at the same time not true.



No, seriously, to be a product manager, MP, it is to feel like a hero of a Zen koan, to which you seem to have found the answer, but in fact you don’t find any answer.



I have been an MP for SaaS in a big company for five years. It is time to consider everything that I learned (something) that I did not recognize (a lot of things) and where I screwed up (many times). Interestingly, when I started work, I constantly came across ads for hiring MPs, where they talked about the mandatory five-year or even ten-year work experience. And now, in five years, I understand why.

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Do not worry if techies hate you. Everyone hates you. Get used to it.

I can not imagine relationships that would be more tuned to the confrontation from the very beginning. You tell the techies what to do - but you don't have the power, and you apparently need to convince them with some kind of distortion of reality (which Steve Jobs had and who was the best MP in the world. Well, wasn't he a great guy? ?)



Techies automatically see you as an enemy. Why? Because you make them work. And often not over what they would like. And if you do not force, then look in their eyes useless and incompetent.



If you give them too much work, they refuse. If you don’t, then you don’t have a “vision” for a reasonably strong team motivation. And it becomes especially interesting when other MPs begin to steal your resources.



And after all, not only techies - everyone blames you for everything.



“Where is the function I requested three years ago?”



“Why is the release date exactly like that?” That's because you appointed her? "



“Why do I find this mistake after your release?” Have you not tested? ”



"The client wants to talk to the MP, they are unhappy with the product."



Anyway, everyone will hate you. Customers, techies, support, other MP. Everything.



Well, okay - if you work well, then sometimes (sometimes) you will have a good product. And in this case, those who hate you (well, some of them) will sympathize with you a little.

Do not inherit the product of another MP

With it, you will accept all design errors, all that they have postponed due to excessive complexity. all the problems that they have not fixed. Congratulations - now it's your problem.



It seems to me that the MP must die out the fastest. How can you not lose motivation if you are given a shmat of coal and are required to turn it into a diamond?



You rarely get a chance to build something from scratch entirely. I have had such a chance in five years only twice, and only once did I see the output of the product. If you get such a chance - take it. Because nothing compares to the feeling when you did something and it achieved success.

Attend scrum meetings and chat with techies

I do not know why many MPs consider visiting scrum as optional. How else do you know what the guys are working on? How do you know what prevents them and delaying the release? How will your team trust you and maybe it will not hate you if it sees that you are trying on a par with everyone?



The most important thing is to join the techies team. A five-minute conversation costs a 20-page email.

You are all

At the start, you are a sales engineer, CSM, support and everything else you need to do. Perhaps I have never been engaged in pure technical work and net sales. And at such a time you are just trying to get the next client, and not sit in an ivory tower and invent a development strategy.



And at the other end of the spectrum is a big company and a bunch of people for all tasks. And then you have the opportunity to sit and invent a development strategy. But the problem is that you are no longer in the forefront. You are no longer present at every sale, and may lose touch with what is happening.



Do not lose touch - a good MP welcomes with pleasure any interaction with a client, even an unpleasant one. This is the only way to be aware. Who do you lose to? What do customers think about the product? Why do they need help? Do they even use it? The most amazing thing for me is the customers who paid for the product but did not use it.



I do not know if I became the best MP in the last five years, but I definitely learned a lot of things that could make me a better MP than I was at the beginning. And in response to my Zen koan, I will say:



release the product and make customers happy.



This is all you need to try to do. And everything else will follow.